Pages - Menu

14 May 2011

Ian Birrell vs Paul Kagame on Twitter

I am now also including media coverage and blog posts about the exchange at the bottom; please tweet me or comment as more cover the story.

Journalist Ian Birrell got into a spirited exchange with Rwandan President Paul Kagame over twitter today. In addition, Louise Mushikiwabo, Rwanda's Minister of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation, joined in the discussion. Yes, you read that correctly. The President of a nation engaged with a critic on twitter. Below I have assembled the exchange between the two.

The post is a tad rough around the edges right now for the sake of timeliness. I will make additions as they come and any necessary changes for the sake of easier reading and clarification and list them below.

4:49 PM - LM replies to IB9:30 AM May 15 - Louise Mushikiwabo has begun to protect her tweets.4:19 PM May 15 - Ian Birrell writes an article about the exchange in for the Guardian. In the comments section a user under the name PaulKagame writes:

How dare U cause this mischief by continuing 2 insult me in your newspapers!Wrong U R to abuse my country in this way. U have no foundation for UR accusations about me.
What right to you have 2 judge an African country? U think that U have the right to say wateva kind of lies you want about our GR8 land of Rwanda.
We R a free country and you shud have more respect than 2 spread such lies about us.
Wrong U R to say these things.

The language has me leaning towards this being a mocking comment aimed at Kagame for is use of the phrase "wrong u r" in one of his tweets. However, there is the chance it was him and I have added it so that you can judge. Also of note is the fact that this is not the same forum as twitter where constrained characters forced the president into using text-speak. HT Zak9:00 AM May 18 - LM writes her take on the exchange in Rwanda's New Times9:00 AM May 18 - Andrew Mwenda has taken to twitter to defend Kagame and those tweeting in opposition with a long series of tweets and conversations. See all of his tweets curated by Kimberly Curtis for the Foreign Policy Association Blogs